Kristin Wong

You might watch your finances like a hawk, but all of us are guilty of making the occasional stupid spending mistake. Of course, some of us make them more often than others. Author Ramit Sethi has an interesting suggestion to curb the problem: create a "stupid mistakes" budget.

On his website, Sethi explains that he added an extra category—"stupid mistakes"—to his budget. It's not necessarily for overspending, but for spending on things that could easily be avoided—library fines or ATM fees, for example.

When I started paying attention to my stupid mistakes, I basically eliminated them altogether within 6 weeks. It's amazing how a budget–one you created yourself–can change your spending behavior. Now I take the money I would have spent on mistakes and put half into savings and spend half on myself.

Not a bad idea, even if only to see how much these mistakes add up. Check out Sethi's full post for more detail.